Are Indian Tribals Hindus: Part 3

Read the previous parts here.

III. The North

At this point, we can see the figures for the northern region, consisting of Jammu-Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh., which will obviously be different from the two regions already seen, since this represents the northernmost part of India lying close to the confluence of the Muslim West of Asia and the Buddhist North of Asia. Parts of the state of Jammu-Kashmir are occupied by (Muslim) Pakistan and (once-Buddhist) China, and even within the non-occupied areas, we have the three regions of Muslim-dominated Kashmir, Buddhist-dominated Ladakh, and Hindu-dominated Jammu. In these circumstances, we can naturally expect a three-fold division among the tribal populations also.We thus have the Muslim-majority tribes, the Buddhist-majority tribes and the Hindu-majority tribes:

In spite of the mixed nature of the religious composition of the tribes in the northern region, it is clear that, here also, there are no “Hindu Category Three” tribals, and the tribals are either “Hindu Category One” or “Hindu Category Two” (Buddhist) or converted Muslims, obviously converted from the originally “Hindu Category One/Two” tribals of the area. [Figures for two very small tribes, the predominantly Buddhist Beda and the predominantly Hindu Sippi, do not seem to be available]

IV. The West-Central Heartland

The West-Central heartland of India consists of the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan in the West and Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in Central India. We must also include here the small states or territories of Goa, Daman-Diu and Dadra-Nagar-Haveli. First we will take the tribes having more than 97% declared Hindus:

The following are the tribes having between 90-97% of declared Hindus:

And finally the few tribes where Hindus are less than 90%:

To sum up the situation so far: we have seen the religious composition of the tribals in the whole of India to the north, west and south of the Jharkhand-Orissa line, and we find that in the overwhelming majority of the tribes the percentage of “Hindu Category One” tribals is far above 90%, and far more than the percentage of the Hindus in the general population of the states concerned. The tribals are more emphatically Hindu than the non-tribals of these states. In the few tribes where the powerful missionary machinery has made any impact, the converts are obviously from among “Hindu Category One” tribals, and “Hindu Category Three” tribals are almost totally absent.

It is only in the single case of the Gond tribe of the Western-Central heartland region that we find “Hindu Category Three” tribals of any significance: a total of 6,51,111 tribals from the Gond tribe in this region declare themselves to be neither Hindu-Buddhist-Sikh-Jain nor Muslim-Christian-Parsee-Jew. It is true that this is only 5.99% of the total Gond population of 108,70,476 in this region, and the “Hindu Category One” Gonds number 101,32,841, or 93.21% of the tribe. Nevertheless, we have here one case of a “Hindu Category Three” religion: a Gond religion. [As we also saw earlier, out of the miniscule population of 1,625 Ho tribals in Bihar, 3.08% declare themselves likewise to be “Hindu Category Three”, while 88.62% are outright Hindus. But this is only a spillover from the neighbouring Jharkhand area, as we shall see in a moment].

V. The Eastern Heartland

Finally, we come to that part of India which is at the centre of the whole question: the region comprising the states of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa. Here we come across the first major “Hindu Category Three” religion followed by a large number of tribals in Jharkhand, spilling over into the neighbouring states: The Sarna religion. As Jharkhand is the core area, we must examine the figures for the three states separately, to get a clearer picture. Also note the fact that this is the part of the Indian heartland where the Christian missionary military apparatus has struck in the deepest (not counting the East, which we will examine later), preying on both the “Hindu Category One” tribals as well as the “Hindu Category Three” tribals (although their modus operandi in the two cases must obviously contain some differences). Hence, there is a three-way division of the tribals into “Hindu Category One”, converted Christian, and (in the column entitled “Others”) “Hindu Category Three”. The Sarna religion is found mainly among the large Santal, Oraon, Munda and Ho tribes, but has adherents among most of the other tribes as well. We will first see the tribes in which more than a third of the population belong to the “Others” category:

Next, the tribes in which the “Others” category is between 20% and 33%:

Next, the tribes in which the “Others” category is between 10% and 20%:

Next, we will examine the figures for the other tribes in the three states, first Jharkhand:

Next, West Bengal:

[The percentage of Buddhists in three of the above tribes in West Bengal is noteworthy: Bhutia 99.72%, Chakma 15.87%, and Hajang 7.40%]

And next, Orissa:

[The tribal names marked with an asterisk (*) represent tribes of Orissa which, for some unknown reason, are completely missing in the Joshua Project figures for Orissa. This mysterious anomaly in respect of the figures for Orissa is in sharp contrast with the otherwise meticulously detailed figures for all the other areas. The figures for these tribes in Orissa therefore had to be gleaned from the figures given in the Joshua Project data for the individual tribes]

To sum up the data for the whole of India analysed so far:

In the whole of India to the north, west and south of the Jharkhand-Orissa line, the tribals are almost exclusively Hindu Category One (and a few tribes in the Himalayan region, Hindu-Buddhist, or Hindu Category One and Two), and any conversions to Christianity or (in a few areas like Kashmir) Islam are exclusively from Hindu tribals. The only possible Hindu Category Three people are a section of Gonds, but even among the Gonds they number only 5.99% of the Gond population of the Western-Central heartland with Hindus forming 93.21% of the tribe. In almost every state, the percentage of Hindus among the tribals is far higher than the percentage of Hindus among the non-tribal population, so that the tribals are more emphatically Hindu than the non-tribals.

In the eastern heartland of Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal, we find the first important Hindu Category Three religion, the Sarna religion. This is geographically centred in Jharkhand, mainly among some important tribes like the Santal, Munda, Oraon and Ho, and found in some significant numbers in many of the other Jharkhand tribes, with a spill over into neighbouring Orissa and West Bengal. But an examination of the figures (even taking into consideration the large scale conversions to Christianity) shows that Hinduism is still the predominant religion even among the tribals of the eastern heartland of India, certainly in Orissa and West Bengal:

The percentage of Hindus in the total population of the three states is as follows: Jharkhand 68.57%, Orissa 94.35%, and West Bengal 72.47%. In West Bengal, the percentage of Hindu Category One among the tribals is still more than the percentage of Hindu Category One in the non-tribal population, but in Orissa and Jharkhand (apart from the large scale Christian proselytization) it is less, because of the presence of the Sarna Hindu Category Three religion, the only such case in the whole of mainland India excluding the North East.

 VI. The North-East

Finally, we come to the last region of India, the North East, consisting of Assam and the six small states of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh. This is the most vulnerable part of India, connected to the rest of India only by a small strip of land in northern West Bengal to the north of Bangladesh, open to endless infiltration from Bangladesh, most vulnerable to the Chinese menace (China is already in occupation of a major chunk of Arunachal Pradesh), and the happiest hunting grounds in India for Christian conversion activity since the days of the British Raj – in fact more so since the British left, as the following statistics from the post-Independence Indian census for the percentage of the Christian population in at least five of the north eastern states shows:

[Earlier figures are not available for some of the states since the states came into existence after those dates]

The rise has been most phenomenal in Arunachal Pradesh, where the Christian percentage has grown from 0.79% in 1971 to 18.72% in 2001: this does not include the figures for crypto-Christians who are many in number in this state due to strong opposition from local tribals opposed to this massive proselytization. And in the only state, of these five, which consistently had a Hindu majority (of around 60%) from 1951 to 1981, Manipur, the Hindu percentage in 2001 was suddenly down to 46.01%. The census figures for 2011 are still not available, and there is no doubt that the percentage of Christians in all these states must have increased even more sharply in 2011, with Manipur rapidly hurtling towards becoming a Hindu-micro-minority state like the other four. But coming to the tribal population in these states, the following is the percentage of tribals in the total population of each of these states (2001):

Within the tribal population of each state, the following is the distribution of population by religion:

It can be seen that there is a complete sweep of conversion to Christianity among the tribal populations of Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram: 96.8%, 98.5% and 90.5% respectively (the Chakma tribe of Mizoram alone representing a Buddhist survival of 8.3% in that state). In Meghalaya, in spite of an otherwise similar sweep (79.8% of the tribals), there is a residual survival of the original tribal religions among minor sections of the two main tribes in the state:

In Arunachal Pradesh, there is an even bigger survival of the original tribal religion: Here we have the traditional Donyi Polo religion followed by almost 47.2% of the tribal population of the state, or 30.3% of the total population of the state. In Manipur, as we saw, there is a clean sweep of conversion to Christianity as in the case of Nagaland and Mizoram, with 96.8% of the tribals converted to Christianity. But, unlike Nagaland and Mizoram, where almost the entire populations are classified as tribal (89.1 and 94.5 respectively, the rest of the state population including emigrants from other neighbouring states and the rest of India), in Manipur only 34.2% of the population is classified as tribal: the major ethnic group in the state, the Meitei, constituting 51.04% of the population, is not counted as tribal. But it is among a section of the Meitei that we see a surviving tribal religion:

There are other miniscule populations among the tribes of these five states of the North East still practicing their ancestral religious or belief systems, but they have been reduced to a micro-minority by the time of the 2001 census itself, and may by now be almost completely decimated. In the two most populated states of the North East, Assam and Tripura, a majority of the tribals still count themselves as Hindu Category One: 90.7% and 80.1% respectively. Note that the percentage of Hindus in the total population of the two states is 64.89% and 85.63% respectively. In Assam at least, we see the phenomenon of a tribal population which is more emphatically Hindu than the general non-tribal population of the state.

In Assam (and Tripura), we find Christian converts mainly among the spill over of tribals from neighbouring states, like the Garo (Meghalaya), Khasi (Meghalaya), Hmar (Manipur), and various Naga (Nagaland), Mizo (Mizoram), and Kuki (Manipur) tribes. But, Hindu Category Three tribals are largely absent in Assam and Tripura. As to the rest of the tribes of Assam and Tripura, the following is the distribution of population by religion:

Even more interesting is the fact that certain important and well-known tribes of mainland India are native to Assam as well in large numbers, but they are not counted among the scheduled tribes in Assam. The following are their population figures by distribution of religion:

The overwhelming majority of them are clearly Hindu, with only a small percentage (2.40%) of the Santals (24,122 out of 10,06,397Santals) declaring themselves as “Others” or Hindu Category Three. Therefore, even Assam is not an exception to the all India phenomenon: the overwhelming majority of the tribals are self-declared Hindu Category One, even more completely and emphatically than the non-tribal population.

To sum up, the tribal population of India is even more (if we may use such a term) “purely” Hindu than the non-tribal population. The tribals are Hindu Category One everywhere, except in a few cases. And all of these few cases of Hindu Category Three, except the biggest one of them all, are found in the forest and hill areas of the north-east. The only one further west, the biggest of the Hindu Category Three religions, Sarna, is centred in the forests of Jharkhand.

The facts are crystal clear: except for followers of these five religions, all the tribal population of India (except converts to Christianity) consists overwhelmingly of Hindu Category One tribals. As the religious population figures of the 2011 Indian Census are still undisclosed, we do not know what the situation is today (2013) and what it will be at some point of time in the future. We do not know how far the efforts to break off the tribals from Hindu society, by converting them to Christianity or trying to convince them even otherwise that they are not Hindus, will be successful.

But the fact is that as of the data now available, they are full-fledged Hindus, self-declared, and any change in the situation can only be a change brought about by Goebbelsian and diabolical machinations, and can not represent the original situation. Yet the billion-dollar funded political and academic campaign to cut off the tribal population of India from the non-tribal population by branding the tribals as non-Hindu, often branding them with innocuous names like “animists”, is in full flow. One example will suffice:

The Wikipedia entry on the Karbi (Arleng) tribals of Assam shows a graph titled “Religion among Karbi”, which tells us that 84.64% of the Karbi follow “Traditional Beliefs”, and 15.00% follow “Christianity”. We are further told: “Most of the Karbis still practice their traditional belief system, which is animistic, called ‘HemphuMukrong’, However, there are also Karbi Christians (some 15% , according to the Census of India, 2011). The practitioners of traditional worship believe in reincarnation and honour the ancestors”. However, the census figures (for 2001 – how the person posting this entry claims to have got the religious population figures for 2011, not yet available anywhere, for this particular tribe, is a mystery) tell us that 87.14% (5,22,954 people) of the Karbi/Arleng of Assam (total population 6,00,111) are Hindu, 11.61% (69,645) are Christian, and 1.23% (7,390) follow “other” (i.e. non-Hindu-Buddhist-Sikh-Jain and non-Christian-Muslim-Parsi-Jew) religions. And these figures are faithfully reported in the data provided by the Joshua Project, whose aim is to give the genuine religious population figures for all the ethnic peoples of the world, so as to enable missionaries to formulate their strategies accordingly. The Wikipedia article, like articles in the Indian media or in books meant for consumption in India, obviously have different aims: the primary one being the old policy of “Divide and Conquer”.

In Part I of “Are Indian Tribals ‘Hindus’?”, we have only examined the basic statistics to show that the Indian tribal population is Hindu, wholly Hindu, and nothing but Hindu – in fact more Hindu than the non-tribal population of India. The tribals themselves say so. We already pointed out that the three aims of this insidious propaganda is:

a) to tell the tribals that they are not Hindus and have no connections with the larger Hindu society around them,

b) to tell the world that the converted tribals are not Hindus in the first place, and so it is no business of the Hindus to interfere if the tribals are converted to Christianity, and

c) to tell posterity that Hinduism is as foreign a religion to India as Christianity, in the name of the Aryan invasion theory, as the tribals follow “pre-Aryan” religions while Hinduism is an “Aryan” religion brought by “Aryan invaders” from outside.

Now, we have the existing Hindu Category Three religions (Sarna, Donyi Polo, Khasi, Meitei, Garo, and possibly others practiced by more microscopic sections of other isolated tribes). We also have attempts by the missionary machinery to create new Hindu Category Three religions (in the name of “animism”, etc., as appellations for people who call themselves Hindu, as we saw in the above example of the Karbi tribe of Assam) on the principle that it is easier to target and swallow smaller entities. In the next part, we will examine the facts in full detail, to see whether the real or sought-to-be-created tribal religions are really non-Hindu in any sense of the term, or in any way closer to Christianity than to Hinduism.

To be continued

Shrikant Talageri

Shrikant Talageri is a scholar and acclaimed author of The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, the seminal work on the Aryan Invasion debate. His latest work is “Rigveda And Avesta The Final Evidence.”